


watch me fall to pieces

by wandofhawthorn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, eighth year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 01:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wandofhawthorn/pseuds/wandofhawthorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps that’s the difference between winning and losing. The winners get to keep their souls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	watch me fall to pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rivetingiknow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivetingiknow/gifts).



> For Ashley's birthday, which I'm celebrating late (but only because everyone knows June babies are scientifically better than everyone else).
> 
> I know this is a little angsty for a birthday present, but ain't nobody got time for fluff.

He watches her shine across the courtyard. The late afternoon sun filters through the clouds, backlighting a cloud of hair with fire and reminding him of an image of an angel he spotted at a muggle cathedral over the summer. The effect passes, but he is no less captivated by her.

She should be broken. The war should’ve left her bruised and bleeding, cracked beyond repair.

Perhaps that’s the difference between winning and losing. The winners get to keep their souls.

Draco scowls, kicking a pebble across the cobblestones.

* * *

Without space in the rest of the castle, the twelve returning eighth years are delegated to a new dormitory in the East Tower. Draco keeps to himself. He knows he’s unwelcome amidst the victorious.

The library becomes his sanctuary. The smell of parchment and leather bindings overwhelms the odd scent of new construction that fills the rest of the castle, and Draco is able to imagine that the war didn’t touch him.

He consistently returns to the common room after curfew. Relief courses through his veins when he enters an empty room; stone walls can’t judge him the way his classmates do.

* * *

 

Just before Christmas, with the castle asleep under a foot of snow, Draco returns from the library to find her asleep on a sofa. The sight of her makes him freeze just inside the door, a deer in the headlights. She shifts and buries her face in a cushion. He flees.

* * *

It happens again the next night.

And the next.

On the fourth, he arrives to the sound of soft whimpers. She’s twitching on the couch, deep in the throes of a nightmare.

The cracks begin to show.

* * *

 

He’s lost count of the nightmares he’s witnessed by the time the students return from their holiday. He hasn’t told anyone. He holds this version of her close to his chest, tucked in the crevice between his lungs. She’s a reminder of the battle scars they all carry, no matter the side they fought for.

Muffled sobs fill the air on a stormy Thursday night in April, and Draco can tell this one is worse than the others. For reasons unknown to him, he stays, hiding in the shadows until lightning flashes, white hot and violent. Her body jolts at the sound of the resultant thunder. Draco feels the crackle of energy through his bones.

She’s awake in an instant, panting into the darkness and clawing her rumpled jumper away from her throat as if she were suffocating. Her shoulders shake as the sobs return.

Draco shuffles from the corner, purposefully moving within her line of sight before she can assess him as a threat. Her eyes snap to his, confusion overtaking panic as she registers who he is. He breathes slowly, obviously. She mirrors the pattern; her chest rises and falls with the slow exchange of air.

He doesn’t feel quite so alone in that moment.

Neither speaks.


End file.
